


Meet the Parents

by nagi_schwarz



Series: The Oppenheimer Effect [52]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Crossover, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-18 03:24:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7297525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Multiverse, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Meet the parents."</p><p>Parent-teacher conferences at Memorial High.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meet the Parents

Parent-teacher conferences were some of the roughest times of the year, rougher than midterms and finals. The actual administration of exams was fairly simply. Making the exams beforehand was rough, grading them after was rough. But none of that was nearly as rough as parent-teacher conferences, partially because not nearly as many parents showed up as the teachers would have liked, and what parents did show up tended to want to complain. Loudly, angrily, and at length.  
  
Rodney had volunteered to show up to Tyler’s parent-teacher conference for his final semester as his ‘parent’ because all of his other parents were teachers and needed elsewhere (before he was adopted, Fiona had gone to parent-teacher conferences for him). Since Tyler was living in a household full of teachers - and a future Nobel Laureate - he was very disciplined about his schoolwork, even if he struggled in some subjects, and Rodney anticipated that all of his teachers would have positive reports about him. Rodney’s brilliance in school had led to clashes with the teachers, not that his parents had gone to parent-teacher conferences anyway, so he’d never had good reports, but Tyler wasn’t Rodney.  
  
Rodney dressed nicely, brought a notebook to take notes and a folder to hold any paperwork he was given, and showed up at the appointed time. He lingered with the other parents in the cafeteria where stations were set up for parents to meet with each teacher. Someone had organized calendars so every parent could see every one of their child’s teachers. Rodney accepted his calendar graciously and scanned the crowd, but he didn’t see Sasha’s parents, who Cam had warned him about. Good for him and Cam and the others, but bad for Sasha. Chances were her Aunt would come, though. Rodney hoped.  
  
He was pleased to see Fiona, and then felt bad, because if she was here, it meant another child was a ward of the state. He sidled over to her.  
  
“Miss Chapman.”  
  
She started and turned, eyes wide. “Dr. McKay! What are you doing here?”  
  
“Parent-teacher conferences for Tyler, obviously.”  
  
“Right. Because all the others are teachers. How’s he doing? I miss my home visits.” Fiona smiled.  
  
Rodney knew better than to ask her who she was here for. “He’s doing very well. I expect good reports from all his teachers, not just the ones who are his parents. And I’m sure you’d be welcome to dinner any time. Evan always makes enough to feed an army.”  
  
“Or an air force,” Fiona said, finishing the long-running joke in the house. “Maybe I will, if Tyler doesn’t mind.”  
  
“I’m sure he wouldn’t. After all, he needs to beat someone at Dominion once in a while.” Belatedly, Rodney realized how that sounded. “I mean -”  
  
Fiona laughed it off. “I know what you mean.” Then the smile slid off her face. “What are they doing here?”  
  
“Who?” Rodney turned and followed her gaze, but as soon as he saw the woman he knew. Her big dark eyes, her smooth dark skin, her heart-shaped face. Tyler’s biological mother. The man beside her looked nothing like Tyler - his skin was a different shade of brown, his hair a different texture, his face too long and thin. Tyler had said his father was in prison for murdering his grandfather. Maybe this was his stepfather?  
  
The woman spotted Fiona and hurried across the cafeteria to her.  
  
“I want to see my son,” she said.  
  
Rodney almost said, _He’s not your son,_ but while that was legally true, he wasn’t quite sure how Tyler felt about all that (Cam had told them about his brief upset during his Christmas visit with the Mitchells), and it probably wouldn’t help the situation.  
  
“Mrs. Guerrera,” Fiona said calmly, “he’s not here. Parent-teacher conferences are for parents and teachers only.”  
  
“You know where he is.”  
  
“Not right this second,” Fiona said.  
  
“But you know who adopted him. I want to see him!”  
  
“Ma’am,” Rodney said, “Tyler’s eighteen now.” In fact, this weekend was his birthday party.  
  
The woman whipped around to glare at him. “I know, so I want to see him.”  
  
“You’re entitled to your feelings,” Fiona said calmly, “but whether or not you see Tyler is up to Tyler. As Dr. McKay pointed out, Tyler’s eighteen, and he’s legally an adult. If he chooses not to see you, that’s up to him.”

“He’s not in your custody anymore. You can’t hide him from me. Tell me where he is.”  
  
Rodney recognized the fire in her eyes. He’d seen it in Kusanagi’s eyes once, right before she threw a chair at his head.  
  
“I can’t do that,” Fiona said. “I’m required to maintain client confidentiality even after a case is closed. I am legally forbidden from disclosing any information about his adoptive parents.”  
  
The man - who was even shorter than Evan - stepped in front of the woman and drew an honest-to-goodness knife.  
  
“You’ll take my wife to her son, or -”  
  
“What? You’ll cut me? Get real. This is a school, not a Michael Jackson music video,” Rodney snapped, because he tended to talk without thinking when he was nervous.  
  
The man jabbed the knife at Rodney, who recoiled, tugging Fiona with him.  
  
What happened next, Rodney could never accurately describe. Someone yelled, “Knife!”  
  
And then the man went sprawling. Cam was there, in his wheelchair, panting hard. Had he rammed the man? JD was wrestling the woman to the ground in a few quick moves and Evan was scooping up the fallen knife and John was pinning the man down and shouting for Gabriel, and Rodney never did get to do any parent-teacher conferencing.  
  
He did get to answer questions for the police a hundred times over to a hundred different members of the Colorado Springs Police Department, and then he and Cam and JD and Evan and John had to field increasingly worried text messages from Tyler, who’d been expecting them home hours ago.  
  
The police let Cam go first so he could check on Tyler. Rodney and Fiona were kept the longest. Gabriel, the school resource officer, had given the police the school’s security footage, so he wasn’t sure why they had to keep asking questions.  
  
Rodney was absurdly glad when it was all over, though. Principal Connors promised to reschedule parent-teacher conferences as soon as possible. By then, Rodney didn’t even care, wanted to go home and curl up with John and sleep for two days. It was stupid, he knew, to assume that Earth was safer than the rest of the galaxy, that as soon as he walked away from the SGC his life would be perfectly banal. He was more likely to get hit by a car than killed by an alien invader.  
  
But the school was supposed to be a safe place. Home was supposed to be a safe place. When Rodney was just Rodney and not Dr. McKay, chief physicist at the SGC, he was supposed to be able to have a normal life. Grocery shopping. Helping Tyler with his homework. Doing laundry. Watching movies on the couch with John and Oppie.  
  
“Hey.” John was waiting for Rodney when he stepped into the kitchen.  
  
“Hey yourself.” Rodney smiled and went to take off his jacket, but for some reason he couldn’t work the zipper. His hands were shaking.  
  
He’d almost been stabbed. By Tyler’s crazy parents.  
  
He’d almost been _stabbed._  
  
John reached out, helped Rodney unzip and unfasten the jacket, peeled it off of Rodney gently, and then he pulled Rodney in for a long, slow kiss.  
  
“You’re all right,” John whispered. “You’re safe. I’d never let anything happen to you. We’d never let anything happen to you.”  
  
It was a stupid promise to make, because John and the others wouldn’t always be around to protect Rodney, but it was what Rodney needed to hear. He stepped closer to John, buried his face against John’s neck. John rubbed a hand up and down his back.  
  
“You’re taking this awfully well,” Rodney said. “All of you. I mean - Cam’s in a wheelchair and he actually rammed that guy.”  
  
“You forget we’re soldiers,” John said. “We run toward emergencies.”  
  
Rodney held him tightly. “Thank you.”  
  
“Come on,” John said, “stop by and say hi to Tyler so he knows you’re alive and you’re not mad at him because his parents are crazy, and then let’s go to bed. And I’ll show you just how alive you are.”  
  
Rodney nodded, and he kissed John one more time. “I love you.” He knew he didn’t say the words as easily or as often as John deserved.  
  
“Love you too.” John smiled against his mouth, then let out a shaky exhale. “If something had happened to you tonight -”  
  
“Nothing did. You saved me.” Rodney kissed him again, briefly. “Now, let’s go be parents.”


End file.
